[Video] Ubuntu Developer Portal gets previewed

One of the many criticisms that the Ubuntu Software Centre has come under since its launch is how difficult it’s been to get paid, commercial applications submitted for inclusion in the Paid Apps section.

Ever since we released Volley Brawl a couple of months ago, I’ve had numerous emails from publishers and developers asking me “how on earth did you do that?! We’ve been trying to contact Canonical for months now to get [game] into the Software Center to no avail.”

Thankfully it’s a problem Canonical are all to aware of, so they’ve been working on a Developer Portal similar to that of the Android Market or iOS App Store. Developers or publishers can submit their app, add a title, description, price, category and more.

Canonical employee Stuart Metcalfe explains:

“In Ubuntu 10.10 we introduced the ability to purchase software through the Ubuntu Software Centre. Because of the existing manual process to get new ISVs (independent software vendors) signed up, however, the number of applications available for purchase has grown slower than we’d like.

The solution we’ve selected to this problem is to have a standard developer program for ISVs to sign up to and to provide an online self-service portal where they can manage their applications.”

See it in action

Metcalfe has also made a short narrated video to demonstrate the process:

Currently access is “limited to ISVs we have an existing relationship with” but Canonical says that once they’ve ironed out the bugs, the system will be open to everyone.